Page 98 of Best Man Speaking

Somehow, we’ve ended up chest to chest, with Hallie’s anger a palpable thing, alive and thriving between us.

My smile feels more like a grimace as it pulls on my lips. “I’ll offer it to you one more time. What do you want to know? Anything you want.”

Her lips pull together in stubbornness, refusing to speak.

“Hallie,” I admonish. “You know exactly what you want to ask me.”

And I’m right. She does know.

It’ll be a question she doesn’t want to ask, and one I don’t want to hear, let alone answer. It’ll make us both feel like shit for different reasons. And it’s got nothing to do with the last few weeks.

Finally, she takes a ragged inhale. “Am I so…nope, nope, nope. I will not ask that question.” A thread of fury pulses through her voice.

If she was about to ask if she’s easy to let go, I’m thankful she was able to stop herself. It’d cut me deep to know that question was the first one she thought of.

Hallie’s eyes hit mine and hold. “You said you’d be my family. Marcus, you asked me to marry you.” She steadies herself, eyes still icy on mine. “And then the day after you fucked me, you told me I was too much. That Ineededtoo much. Surely my dad didn’t tell you to say all that. So did you just not love me at all?”

Her words are as sharp as blades, and I let each of them do their damage.

She’s right. I was the guy who got the girl to love him. Got her to believe in every single word he spoke. Took what he wanted and then simply seemed to bail. That’s exactly what she and everyone else had seen. At the time, it felt like shit, but it didn’t hurt me on the surface—not my reputation, not my social life, not the career I would one day have. The only things it damaged were my relationship with Hallie and the bond I had with my brother. My actions decimated those two things. Utterly and completely.

So far, I’ve only been given the opportunity to build one back up, and here I am, continuing to dismantle the other.

I want to tell her. Have already said I would. I’d done what I’d thought was the right thing at the time; I believed her dad when he said we were young and we’d grow apart. I’d believed him more when he’d said I’d have nothing worth offering her.

“We were too young, Hallie. Way too young. I didn’t deserve you, and you didn’t deserve to be stuck forever with me. You deserved so much more. I shouldn’t have said any of it. I should’ve known better.”

“And what, you couldn’t have figured that out, I don’t know, before you told me you loved me and I let you inside of me?” The fury in her is potent, barely simmering beneath the surface. “Before you kissed me and licked me and held me as you cameinside me?” She is purposefully crass, and I can’t help but wonder which one of us she’s trying to hurt more.

My jaw tics. “Are you done?”

“Are you?” she fires back, furious. Her argumentative tone strangely gives me hope.

“Not nearly.” My voice is firm, ready to withstand whatever comes next.

“When I tried to talk to you, when I cried, you laughed at me and said it didn’t matter, that we were just kids and this wasn’tit.That it wasn’t love becausemy dadhad said so. What even was that? Did he offer you money then too?” Hallie’s voice breaks ever so slightly, but she pushes through. “My heart shattered, and you laughed.”

“No. Of course, there was no money. I was a kid—all he had to do was make me feel like I wasn’t worthy, to remind me it was you who wanted to see the world. Yes, I should’ve fought for you then, and I shouldn’t have believed him over us. But wewereyoung, Hallie. He wasn’t wrong about that.”

It’s true. We’d been young, and I had loved her. Enough to let her go. And I’d do it again now if she asked me to.

“Well, we aren’t teenagers anymore, and it turns out you’re just the same as you’ve always been. It’s no wonder you’re still alone. You fix all these houses, build people’s dream homes, and yet you can’t figure out how to maintain even the simplest of relationships. With brick, mortar, and all things surface-level, you do okay. But with flesh and blood and love? You fail every time.”

Her words encourage the poison seeping through my skin, running through my veins, and I lash out in the pain of it.

“Hallie, what would you even know about a home?” My tone is scathing. “If you clicked your ruby-red boots together three times, where the hell would you even end up?”

“Well, I sure as shit wouldn’t end up anywhere near you,” she replies, quick as a whip, with only resentment seeping from her.

I drag a hand through my hair, my eyes lifting to the ceiling in silent prayer. This was not the conversation I’d come here to have.

“And what was this between us? A way to keep me occupied and satisfied until you could ensure your money was in the bank? Sleep with me, tell me it’s more, and then end things after the wedding anyway? Make sure I was humiliated and hurt enough that there was no way I’d stay?”

I rock back on my heels. “You’d think that.”

“You’ve given me little reason to think otherwise. You’ve kept this from me the whole time.” She’s right, and all it’s done is put us right back where we’d started. “And my house? I don’t want you to own it.” Her words are scathing and utterly unforgiving.

“Well, that’s not how business works.” Hallie is too angry, and I’m too on edge to have this conversation go anywhere positive.

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